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Wednesday, 29 December 2010

This years lectures seem to be a bit more haphazard than last year. I actually have no idea who is organising them but today I phoned the director of the museum and he believes there is one this Saturday and every Saturday. He has no idea what the subject is. You now know as much as me

Friday, 24 December 2010

We have had one lecture, still no news of the series but here are my notes.

Exploring the sacred district Kelly Anne DiamondKelly has been looking into an area shown on early New kingdom private tombs, located on the left wall of the passage in T-shaped tombs.Now whilst I don’t have her slides I do have a link to a great picture on osirisnet of exactly what she was talking about so you can see. http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/el_kab/renni/e_renni_02.htm

It is an area that looks like a garden and believes she has found similar scenes elsewhere• Djer plaque, there are shrines with trees and a canal• In the Old Kingdom with Mww dancers in front, Ptahotep and Idut are examples• 5th dynasty sun temple• Early 13th dynasty example at AvariceIdentifying this is tricky because it is not known various authors give various descriptions, within Porter and Moss, Kelly has found different descriptions including scared garden. The transliteration is tA Dsr sometimes referred to sacred land or even cemetery or necropolis. It is possible enclosed although that is not certain and has the appearance of a plan or map. Often in conjunction with three female titles1. dmDyt2. mn/knwt3. mnit wrtThe first title means she who collects and unites the limbs (putting the deceased back together like Osiris), she is shown in some examples mooring the boat of the deceased, the third wearing the great mooring post and the second mooring the boat of the deceased. (Hope I have got these right as my notes are bit muddled).There are connections between these and the myths of Osiris, Kelly thinks these are very archaic conceptions and that the New Kingdom scribes might not have been exactly sure what they were themselves. There are also very few examples which make analysis difficult. The scene appears in the progression of tomb scenes, after the funeral and before the afterlife.You can find it in Renni at El Kab and TT81, 21, 179, 125, 71, 224, 100,127 and 112. It is rarely found after the time of Tuthmosis III and Hatshepsut except in a couple of Ramesside tombs and Saite revivals. Renni at el Kab is one of the best examples, others being partially destroyed. The scene after this one tends to be the shrine of Osiris or Anubis. In the tomb of Rekhmire it is Osiris, rarely it can be the goddess of the west. The scene preceding it is the mww dancers.There are various elements• the hall of the mww• Pool surrounded by trees• Two obelisks• Garden plots with or without offering stands• Pairs of sycamore trees• Rows of shrines sometimes with gods inside• Women’s tent• Three pools for Khepri, Hekat and Sokar• Great gate or God of the gate• Two kitesThe use of knwt is a little anachronistic she suggested. The climax of use of this scene is during the reign of Hatshepsut and she wonders if there is a royal connection. The Amarna period changed the religion and tomb paintings in this area and after that the paintings only show the real events of the funeral. She believes this to be a concept, an intermediate space between living and dead. It is always on the left wall of a passage which is an intermediate area itself. Other scholars like Hartwig and Strudud(??) believe that the tomb regenerated the deceased once they crossed that line and the passage is a transition. The goal of the funeral is to access the West (afterlife) from the East (living).Sacred places are always shown low on the wall in the early 18th dynasty. The Ramesside example has it in the upper registers going round a corner. A t-shaped pool and tree goddess preceded it. Some scholars believe that the T-shaped pool shown in Ramesside tombs as the evolution of the sacred district scene.This place could be mythical or legendary or even a real place. If we believe that the tomb is a map for the deceased then it has a connection with Anubis and Osiris as the final destination of the deceased, a buffer zone if you like.Interestingly the Neferhotep stele mentions an area of ground outside Abydos where the tA Dsr is demarcated by a number of stele. Nobody is allowed to enter but priests and nobody can be buried there. So there is appears to be a real place but again a buffer or transitional area.This is a work in progress subject but Kelly put forward a very convincing argument with lots of detail.

Everyone who is interested in ancient Egypt knows of the tomb of Nakht, TT52, one of the better preserved of Luxor, and one of the rare ones which can still be visited.But this visit often brings with it more frustrations than expected: the tomb, originally very small, is now minuscule with the introduction of protective glass panels. Between the dust which covers these panels and the low lighting, which itself reflects on them, a number of scenes is nearly invisible, in all cases the true value of the scenes cannot be appreciated.This is why it seemed interesting to us to present to you this monument as at a better time.http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/nobles/nakht52/e_nakht_01.htm

We take advantage of this letter of information to wish you to all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year for 2011.Enjoy your visit

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Imagine my surprise on picking up guests at the airport to be told they had read about me in the Lonely Planet. Well I knew Flats in Luxor was featured but knew nothing about me personally appearing. Well I will be blowed, there I am as a local expert and even the blog gets a big mention. How strange nobody contacted me, still of course I don't mind

This conference included an exciting array of demonstrations and talks, from flint knapping to flower arranging, from textiles to ship building, not to mention woodworking, stoneworking, manufacturing ritual clay artefacts, shipbuilding, antler bow manufacture, glassworking, an oral performance, and of course mummification!

This conference was streamed with financial help from Swansea University Research Institute for Arts and Humanities. The results can be downloaded by clicking on the name of the speakers:

Introduction

Ashley Cooke

The Experimental Work of F.C.J. Spurrell: Faience, Glass and Beads.

Sonia Focke

The Horn Bow - Egyptology's Problem Child

Finds of bows made from oryx horns are known from the subsidiary tombs at Abydos , yet many Egyptologists have doubted their functionality. This paper aims to explain the construction of the horn bows, present the various arguments against it being a functional weapon and present the insights gained in the reconstruction of such a bow.

Salima Ikram

From the Meadow to the Em-baa-lming Table: Experimental Archaeology and Mummification.

This lecture (and limited demonstration) will provide a brief, general introduction to the ideas behind Experimental Archaeology and its application to Egyptology. This will be illustrated by a group of experimental mummifications of animals carried out recently at the American University in Cairo, as well as a modest demonstration on choice cuts of meat from a local butcher.

Please note: Some of the images in this presentation are graphic.

Rosalind Janssen

Textile Demonstration

The aim of this innovative workshop is to demonstrate the role of experimental archaeology in conducting research. We will use exact replicas of four so-called wooden ‘pleating boards’ surviving in museums in Turin, Florence, and London, together with different qualities of linen dating from the time of the Second World War. Our practical attempts will enable us to contemplate just how the Egyptians created their famous pleated diaphanous garments. The results are guaranteed to be surprising!

A practical demonstration and short illustrated talk of those woodworking tools used by Ancient Egyptian carpenters. A discussion of the tools marks that can be identified on woodwork including attempts to turn wood using a simple replica lathe similar to that illustrated in the tomb of Petosiris.

Marquardt Lund

Flintknapping scenes from the Beni-Hasan tombs viewed and interpreted by a contemporary flintknapper.

Two flint knapping related scenes are known from the Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan. These had formerly been questioned as to whether they were closely related to the true ancient manufacturing process. Recent experiments indicate that it seems possible that several details were indeed accurately depicted.

Sally McAleely

Experimental Recreation of an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Garland Found on the Mummy of Ramesses II.

Experimental archaeology is a valid and well tried methodology for interpreting archaeological evidence. It enables us to explore practical aspects of past technologies, giving insights into prowess and the chaîne opératoire, and in my view also provides a platform to explore aspects of human cognition, namely the notions of savoir-faire and connaissance, through practical experience.

This paper discusses these theoretical concepts and their contribution to the interpretation of artefacts; describes the experimental reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian garland found on the mummy of Ramesses II; and shows how experimental archaeology was used to address a number of research questions.

John Merkel

Metalworking

Paul Nicholson

Could the Egyptians Make Glass? An Integrated Approach to Experimental Archaeology.

The question of whether or not the Egyptians could make their own glass, rather than simply working glass from imported raw material, has been a vexed one. This paper examines the debate over the evidence for glass working in Egypt and demonstrates how an experimental approach has been used to in combination with archaeological evidence in order to provide a possible answer to this question. Emphasis is put on the strengths and limitations of the experimental approach.

Ann Richards

Could Ancient Egyptian Textiles Have Pleated Themselves?

It is widely assumed that, in Ancient Egypt, all pleated linens were produced by imposing pleats on finished fabrics, either by hand or using pleating boards. However Rosalind Janssen has suggested that some fabrics may have been woven in such a way that they pleated ‘naturally’ when washed. I am a weaver who makes extensive use of such spontaneous pleating techniques in my own textiles. I will explain the mechanisms involved and describe experiments I have carried out, with various yarn thicknesses, twists and densities, to investigate the possibility that Ancient Egyptian textiles could have pleated themselves.

Ann Richards is a designer/maker specialising in textiles with ‘naturally emerging’ textures. She has exhibited widely and has work in a number of public collections. She was formerly a lecturer in woven textiles at the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham.

Donald Ryan

Reed Boat Building: Early Experiments

Denys Stocks

Some Experiments in Ancient Egyptian Stone Technology

This paper will be presented in two parts. The first part discusses the tools and techniques for ancient Egyptian stone vessel manufacture, covering key processes and tools that stretched from Predynastic times to the end of Egyptian civilization. Important epigraphic and archaeological evidence will be introduced and examined, with appropriate illustrations, together with the manner that this evidence, combined with mechanical engineering training, directed the experimental manufacture, evaluation and use of reconstructed tools for creating vessels of different shapes, which were made of both hard and soft stones. These reconstructed tools will be demonstrated to conference members for shaping, for drilling and for boring two replica stone vessels: ancient design ideas for tools, using plant’s structural features, will also be scrutinized.

The paper’s illustrated second part concentrates upon the development of a multiple, simultaneous stone bead drilling procedure that developed in the New Kingdom Period at Thebes , Upper Egypt , and which is illustrated in six private tombs. This remarkable development replaced single bead-drilling methods to make the threading hole, ushering in a new and exciting manufacturing technique that dramatically speeded up the most difficult part of manufacturing hard stone beads. The experiments needed to make and test the drilling tools will be described in detail. Drilling up to five beads simultaneously by one worker, in the same time period for drilling a threading hole in a single bead, considerably lowered the economic cost of producing many types of jewellery. Both the single and multiple drilling techniques will be demonstrated to conference members using a flint tool, a replica single bead drill and the reconstructed multiple bead drilling tools. Related ancient technological methods and materials will be discussed while demonstrations take place.

Kasia Szpakowska

Making and Breaking Ritual Figurines

Clay figures shaped like rearing cobras were prevalent in Ancient Egyptian settlements and military installations in the Late Bronze Age. All the evidence points to them having been used in religious rituals, the details of which are as yet unclear. As part of a project to help us understand these figures (how were they used? who used them? who made them? what for?) a short presentation will be made, followed by a hands-on workshop during which we will form cobra figurines from clay. Pre-made figures will also be broken to see if patterns emerge providing clues as to whether they were broken ritually or accidentally. Because this is a hand-on workshop, there is room for only 50 people, and separate enrolment will be required (children are welcome!)

Willeke Wendrich

Apprenticeship as a Research Method

The study of ancient technology, understanding the chaîne opératoire, the physical and social contexts, as well as the history of economics, distribution, use and discard, benefits greatly from hands on experience by the researcher. Traditional apprenticeships to master a technique typically take multiple years of increasingly advanced steps. A researcher who lacks this experience and tries to understand very particular archaeological and technological questions, may come to skewed or false conclusions. In order to avoid failure of experiments, and understand the difficulties of particular technologies a sound research strategy is to take on an abbreviated apprenticeship. Learning from the specialists, and benefiting directly from their experience by involving them closely in the experiments thus puts apprenticeship at the cross-roads of ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology.

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Some more old photos of sites now closed for photography. This tomb is a South Assasif one, part of Dr Elena's concession and looks very different now, check the website for updates http://www.southasasif.com/

Accompanied by Professor Rosalie David, an authority on the History of Medicine in Ancient Egypt, this tour begins in Cairo then continues with a flight to Aswan for a Nile cruise to Luxor. The cruise includes lectures in the evening and guided visits during the day. The tour concludes in Alexandria, examining the influence of Greece and Rome. There is an optional extension to El Alamein and the Siwa Oasis.

If you want to know the latest at the Harwa mission site then Franceso just sent this out to members of his Facebook group. Facebook | Messages - Arcaheological Season 2010: "The archaeological season 2010 in the Funerary Complex of Harwa and Akhimenru just began. If you want to follow our activities the address of the site is: http://www.harwa.it/.

I will try to keep informed the English speaking Harwa's fololowers through FB.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

If you have ever attended any of his lectures then you will know they have been there over a decade, recording, repair and reconstructing. It is a very interesting site

I write with two pieces of news that may be of interest to you in the run up to Christmas, which come straight from our friends at the Egypt Exploration Society (EES).

As part of the Fortnum and Mason Christmas Auction, the EES have put together a special prize of an exclusive Egyptological experience which will take place on Monday 10 January 2011 in London.

The prize..Starting in the late afternoon with a private 'behind the scenes' tour of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum with the Deputy Keeper, Dr Jeffrey Spencer, during which you will be able to see many of objects excavated by the EES in Egypt. In the evening you and your guest will attend the EES private view of the amazing 'Book of the Dead' exhibition at the British Museum, followed by dinner with Dr David Jeffreys of University College London, an eminent EES field director with many years of experience working in Egypt and many fascinating stories to tell.

We would encourage everyone to support the EES this Christmas since it is a unique Egyptological organization with robust archaeological credentials that has been excavating in Egypt for almost 130 years. Like many academic societies, they have faced a challenging time recently, but remain determined to raise the profile and funding necessary to continue their critical work which is currently concentrated in the Egyptian Delta.

The pressures on ancient Delta sites in Egypt due to climate change and social impact are growing and are unlikely to recede. The EES has archaeological teams ready to work at two such sites, Tell Basta and Tell Mutubis, next Spring. These teams are eager to uncover the facts about life in ancient Egypt before these sites become inaccessible for archaeologists and we are asking supporters to get involved this Christmas to help make this a reality.

The Society’s ‘Amelia Edwards Projects’ at Tell Basta and Tell Mutiubis this year have been accepted into the Big Give programme and at 10am on 6th December (until approximately 9th December) there is a special opportunity to double all online donations and to make a real difference to EES fieldwork in Egypt. By getting involved with their ‘Christmas Challenge’ you could help teams to explore these ancient sites in Spring 201l. If you can help and enjoy the idea of your donation going twice as far, simply log on directly to www.thebiggive.org.uk/donate/ees

'Preserving Egypt's ancient records for present and future generations is what we strive to do,' says Ray Johnson, director of Chicago House, the iconic home of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute archaeological team in Luxor. Johnson says that the documentation techniques pioneered by founder James Henry Breasted, while now augmented with new digital tools, have never been surpassed. 'When a photograph or a scan is not clear enough, or the wall surface is terribly damaged, we use non-invasive photographic and digital images as the basis for precise line drawings that continue to set the standard for epigraphic recording everywhere,' he says. 'This technique has become known simply as the Chicago House method, and it still sets the disciplined and meticulous course of the work of our documentation teams.

'We use many different techniques for recording inscribed stone surfaces, depending on the condition of the stone. In hard-to-reach areas aluminium-foil rubbings have proven to be tremendously useful, as is tracing with film on well-preserved surfaces when photography is not possible. We have lots of important projects in the pipeline,' Johnson adds. 'Among the primary sites where we work with the SCA are the Medinet Habu temple complex; the Eighteenth-Dynasty sections of Luxor Temple; Khonsu Temple at Karnak and even a private tomb from the time of Amenhotep III.'

Having conscientiously followed work in progress in Luxor over decades, and having perused the published results of the work completed by the Epigraphic Survey, all of which, by the way, are now available for free PDF download from the Oriental Institute Publications website, (just click 'Egypt' for all the titles), I quite naturally asked myself what remained to be done. Johnson must have anticipated such a question because he proceeds to tell me that 'there are literally kilometres of inscribed wall surfaces in Luxor that have never been properly recorded.' He also tells me about Chicago House's 'exciting new collaboration with the American Research Centre in Egypt, part of its USAID- funded East Bank Groundwater Lowering Response Initiative.'

Does my face register a blank at his words? Perhaps, because he goes on to explain that after the Luxor east bank dewatering program (sponsored by the SCA, USAID, and Sweden) was activated in 2006, the system effectively lowered the groundwater passing beneath Luxor and Karnak Temples by as much as three metres, thereby slowing down the groundwater salt decay of those structures. 'This has enabled follow-up conservation at the sites,' he says, adding that the training of Egyptian SCA conservators has been coordinated by ARCE during the last few years with a special grant from USAID.

'Chicago House is currently assisting ARCE in a floor restoration project at Khonsu Temple in Karnak, which involves replacing missing paving stones along the main axis of the temple that were quarried away in late antiquity -- and which made visiting the site difficult.' Johnson explains that Ramesses III built this temple out of the blocks from half a dozen temples that he dismantled and reused for this purpose, and that, 'luckily for us', in the interests of construction speed his workmen intentionally neglected to erase their original inscribed surfaces.

'As a result almost every block in the temple has earlier decoration preserved on one or more faces, and the floor and foundation stones are no exception. When an area where paving stones are missing is cleared, and earlier inscribed blocks are exposed, my team carefully records the earlier carving before thenew paving stones go in and conceal that information forever.'

Johnson's keen interest in the work in hand registers in the enthusiasm with which he speaks. 'It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and there have been lots of surprises,' he says, 'for instance the team has discovered that most of the floor blocks appear to be from an earlier Eighteenth- Dynasty Khonsu temple, thus providing a new and hitherto unknown chapter in the history of mighty Karnak'. It strikes me that Breasted would have been inordinately happy to know of this re-cycling process, and the care with which the Chicago House team is recording every scrap of information while it is accessible.

But that's not all. With support from ARCE, USAID, and now the World Monuments Fund, Chicago House has sponsored what is known as the Luxor Temple blockyard conservation programme. 'It has been going on for almost 20 years,' says Johnson. 'As environmental conditions changed in Luxor, with increasing humidity and higher groundwater, the decay of the monuments we were documenting accelerated and we recognised the need to expand our programme to include conservation and restoration. So we applied for special grants for that purpose'.

The culmination of the Luxor Temple fragment programme is a new open-air museum display area along the eastern side of the temple that opened to the public last March. 'Here samples of inscribed fragments selected from tens of thousands have been reassembled and arranged in a chronological display by Chicago House. The joined fragment groups represent all periods of Egyptian history: Pharaonic, Ptolemaic, Roman, Christian and even Islamic,' Johnson says. 'The captioned displays add a valuable educational component to the temple visitors' experience. You can actually watch the style of the art change through time before your eyes.'

The passion for Egyptology, and the desire to preserve for posterity all that remains before it is too late, is a cumulative process. All displays in the blockyard, including a section that features inscribed stone recovered during the USAID-sponsored Luxor Temple dewatering programme, is protected by chain-link guardrails and by specially-built stone walkways. 'The displays are also lit for night-time viewing,' says Johnson, who adds, 'At the culmination of the blockyard museum, where one re-enters the great court of Amenhotep III, we have restored an entire wall section made up of 111 fragments to its original location on the wall. It is an amazing scene. The carving shows the barque of Amun on a pedestal being offered to, and followed, by large figures of Amenhotep III. The barque itself was carved by Amenhotep III, hacked out by his son Akhenaten, restored by Tutankhamun, appropriated by Horemheb, and finally enlarged by Seti I, who inscribed his own name in the restoration inscription.

'I put that scene together on paper more than 25 years ago,' says Johnson with a half-concealed smile of pride. 'It's a dream-come-true to see it physically restored to the wall.'

When William Murnane's book United with Eternity: A Concise Guide to the Monuments of Medinet Habu was published by the Oriental Institute in Chicago, and in a paperback edition by AUC Press in 1980, I thought that all the work by the Epigraphic Survey at that monument was at an end. Far from it! Members of the team are hard at work on documentation of the small Amun temple of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III in the precinct, as well as digital drawings of miscellaneous pharaonic and mediaeval graffiti throughout the complex, 'primarily on the roof and upper walls of the Ramesses III mortuary temple, as well as various, mostly demotic graffiti in the ambulatory of the small Amun Temple'.

It is quite hard to keep up with the work being carried out in Luxor, especially in view of the fact that while restoration and documentation continue, nature (and man-made activities, such as agricultural expansion and urban development programmes) continue their counter attack. For instance, who knew that a second USAID/SCA dewatering program was recently activated on the west bank of Luxor, designed to protect three kilometres of west bank monuments - from Medinet Habu to the Seti I Gurna Temple - from groundwater salt decay? The system was activated in October, and word has it that the destructive groundwater at those sites has already gone down by a metre. And how many people have heard of the 11-kilometre, four-metre high wall recently completed by the SCA on the west bank to protect and safeguard Egypt's cultural heritage sites south of Medinet Habu .

I was pleased to hear that a small collection of books from the library of the late Henri Riad now forms the Henri Riad Memorial Library at Chicago House. Riad was a close friend of Labib Habachi (whose photographic archives are already in the Chicago House library). Riad and Habachi both feature in my AUC publication Labib Habachi: The Life and Legacy of an Egyptologist. The difference in their ages was just enough to bring about a form of hero worship by the younger scholar Riad for his older mentor.

Friday, 26 November 2010

I just love this aspect of Egyptian life. Thirty five really top doctors are here in Luxor giving their time free for several days seeing poor people on the West Bank. Local business, hotels and restaurants donate money for medicine, accommodation and meals for these doctors. So really poor people get to see the creme de la creme of the medical profession and don't have to pay a penny. This is the heart of Egypt and why I moved here and love living here in Luxor.

Thursday, 25 November 2010

Sorry if you all got excited about the resumption of lectures hear, sadly the SCA haven't got their act together yet this year. I hope they will soon. So this is for everyone living in the Wirral or across the water in Liverpool.

PS This is the local society of Michael on the roof, so if you go you could even meet him. :)

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

These photos of Hatshepsut's tomb prior to her selecting a site in the valley of kings. The locations is very remote and their local guide Mohammed was able to get them there. I have his contact details should any of you want to get similar shots. Very reminiscent of Tuthmosis III site I thought.

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UK - co-owner of Flats in Luxor Group. British in origin, Egyptian at heart. First visited Egypt in 1979 and finally got to move here in 2003. Been there, done it and got the t-shirt(IT Consultant, PCG Chairman, ex cult member). Finally living my dream: Egyptology (doing an online Egyptology course at Manchester Uni), sunshine, cold beer and Mahmoud. What more could a girl want?